Hand Crank?

[Harry Clark]

Hey...
I just wrapped a series of spots for the Tourism Board of New Jersey, operating and shooting second unit. We used a couple of 435s and a 235. I shot a couple of nice time lapse shots.
One cool accessory that I hadn't had a chance to use before this job was Arri's hand crank attachment. It plugs into the serial port on the side of the 435 where you plug in the time lapse controller. There is a cylindrical shaped block that you can either screw into the shoulder cavity on the camera or hold in your hand. You pop on an Arrihead wheel and crank away. There is a high, medium, and low setting so you can crank super slow or fast or whatever. It's all electronic; I assume there's a bunch of encoders in the cylinder that the wheel attaches to. It was VERY accurate; whatever I did, the 435 motor did too. Made me appreciate the fellas at the turn of the last century, because it's pretty hard to keep a constant speed. But very fun and a cool effect, more organic than twisting the knob on the RCU.
I was just thinking that since the Arri handcrank was electronically based, then maybe we could have one for Red as well?
Not that the Red team doesn't already have enough on their plate...
Cheers,
Harry

 

[I Bloom]

Hey...
I just wrapped a series of spots for the Tourism Board of New Jersey, operating and shooting second unit. We used a couple of 435s and a 235. I shot a couple of nice time lapse shots.
One cool accessory that I hadn't had a chance to use before this job was Arri's hand crank attachment. It plugs into the serial port on the side of the 435 where you plug in the time lapse controller. There is a cylindrical shaped block that you can either screw into the shoulder cavity on the camera or hold in your hand. You pop on an Arrihead wheel and crank away. There is a high, medium, and low setting so you can crank super slow or fast or whatever. It's all electronic; I assume there's a bunch of encoders in the cylinder that the wheel attaches to. It was VERY accurate; whatever I did, the 435 motor did too. Made me appreciate the fellas at the turn of the last century, because it's pretty hard to keep a constant speed. But very fun and a cool effect, more organic than twisting the knob on the RCU.
I was just thinking that since the Arri handcrank was electronically based, then maybe we could have one for Red as well?
Not that the Red team doesn't already have enough on their plate...
Cheers,
Harry

Something I'd like to see as well. Organic awesomeness. I think once they open up the USB port to external control for speed ramping, moco etc. this will appear and be a great third party accessory, and fairly simple to build (you could build one with parts from a computer mouse).

IBloom

 

[PaulClements]

Arri has a handcrank for their D20. Works really well. So there's precident. Hopefully it's not something that can and has been patented.

Paul

 

[Jens Jakob Thorsen]

"I Want a trip to the moon"
But yeah it would be nice....

 

[Mike Prevette]

It would be pretty easy with the 232 port. capturing a single frame for every notch in an encoder. The real cameras had a nice amount of resistance to them so it was easier to keep a constant speed.

_mike

 

[Anders Holck]

The hand crank actually both send an integration start and integration stop command to the camera, so the exposure and motion blur will increase as you slow down.

The trick is to have a geared flywheel in the crank for a more consistent fps

 

[Harry Clark]

The Arri crank had a nice feel to it, and they have a resistance adjustment on the crank housing. But it's a simple drag function, and there's no "flywheel" type inertia that continues if you let go, other than the weight of the wheel. You're right, Anders, that would be a nice ergonomic addition.
Yes, the encoder definitely sends a start and stop for each frame, but it might be simply a positional encoder for the motor. You can stop cranking anywhere in the cycle and the shutter will stop closed, halfway, whatever. Even different parts of individual frames can be exposed differently if you altered your cranking enough. So on the 435 it performed the function of changing exposure and blur perfectly. I wonder if the rolling electronic shutter in the Red could be addresed and controlled this way.
Red Team?
(I know it's Thanksgiving, just having my morning coffee while the kids run around etc.)
Cheers,
Harry